


hold you til i can't

by MaliciousVegetarian



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Grief/Mourning, M/M, Mpreg, Stillbirth, Trans Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-29
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:53:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26714035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaliciousVegetarian/pseuds/MaliciousVegetarian
Summary: When Geralt realizes his baby’s heart is no longer beating, he’s lying on his back under the stars.Geralt and Jaskier are expecting their first child, but when the baby is stillborn, they must find a way to navigate their grief and stay close to each other.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 14
Kudos: 86





	1. there aren't any stars in the sky tonight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [geekyyoungblood](https://archiveofourown.org/users/geekyyoungblood/gifts).



> Edit 9/29/2020 - This is a reupload of a previously posted fic. I deleted all my witcher fic during a Bad Brain Time, and am slowly replacing things.
> 
> Warnings: stillbirth, a trans masc character being pregnant and giving birth, and brief suicidal thoughts.
> 
> Geralt isn't explicitly stated to be trans in this first chapter, but since he is in future chapters I decided to leave it as is.
> 
> This fic deals with a sensitive topic, and I've done my best to handle it with the care it deserves. While I do have personal experience with this kind of loss, I've never experienced it from the perspective of a parent. If anything seems insensitive, please let me know.
> 
> And after all that, this being posted today is a birthday present for the lovely geekyyoungblood. She also beta'd this for me, which does ruin the surprise, but she's been this fic's biggest cheerleader from the beginning, and I figured nothing I wrote in one day would be as nice as this. Happiest of birthdays, Helmi!
> 
> The fic title is from Birdsong by Kina Grannis, and the chapter title is from Something's Not Right by Lily Allen

When Geralt realizes his baby’s heart is no longer beating, he’s lying on his back under the stars.

It’s an early autumn evening, and the air is just beginning to chill. Jaskier’s lying next to him, head resting on Geralt’s chest and snoring gently. His own eyes are beginning to droop.

Normally when they’re lying like this, the baby kicks the shit out of him. They’d been in a similar position the first time he’d felt the baby, almost four months ago now. He’d already grown used to hearing the rapid beat of the baby’s heart, but it had taken him a minute to realize what the fluttering sensation in his stomach was. Part of him had wanted to wake Jaskier up and share this with him, but a larger part had wanted this moment alone with his child. The problem with wintering with three other people with heightened senses was that he’d never really gotten to be alone with this.

The memory is what makes him realize he hasn’t felt the baby move in a little bit, and that revelation is quickly followed by a more chilling one. He can’t hear their heartbeat anymore.

He focuses his senses as hard as he can, panic beginning to build. He puts a hand over his stomach, irrationally thinking that he’ll find some sign of life that way. There’s nothing. The silence is overwhelming.

He has to wake Jaskier, he has to tell him what’s happened. Maybe there’s something they can do, maybe -.

He knows there isn’t. He can feel it deep in his bones. There’s no hope.

He feels like he isn’t part of the world around him. It seems to be continuing the same as it was before, and that can’t be right, because everything’s stopped. He makes a strange whining noise in the back of his throat. This is real, this is happening. And he has to wake Jaskier up and tell him.

He’s going to hate him. Geralt can’t - he’s thinking back over the last few days, trying to figure out what he did wrong. They were so close, they were going to be okay.

Finally, he steels his nerves and puts a hand on Jaskier’s shoulder, shaking him gently. “Wake up. I need you to wake up.”

Jaskier startles from sleep, eyes wide. “‘S wrong?”

“Jask,” Geralt says, and he can hear the desperation in his own voice. “Jask, I can’t hear the baby’s heartbeat.”

Jaskier scrambles into a sitting position. “What?”

“I can’t hear the baby’s heartbeat. I don’t - I don’t know when it stopped.”

“Fuck,” Jaskier breathes. “Oh gods. Are you sure?”

Geralt nods, because he thinks if he tries to speak he’s going to start screaming and he might never stop.

“What do we do? There has to be something we can do.” Jaskier stands up, starts pacing and agitatedly flapping his hands. “Yen, we need Yen. That’s what we’ll do, we’ll contact Yen.” His voice is frantic, and Geralt hates this, hates that he’s done this to him.

They try for what feels like hours, but it doesn’t go through. Something sick is turning in Geralt’s gut, gaining momentum with each passing minute. Finally, Jaskier mutters “Fuck it,” and grabs Geralt’s hand.

“This isn’t working. We’ll ride for the nearest town, it’s just a little over a day now. Come on, hurry.”

Geralt complies, numb.

The ride is awful. Jaskier pushes them to go as fast as they can, but they slow themselves down by stopping to try to contact Yennefer every few hours. It never works. Every time Jaskier tells Geralt they’ll keep trying, and every time he seems more resigned. Geralt doesn’t say anything the whole time. Well, he’s pretty sure he doesn’t. It’s all a blur. He feels swept up in his head, unable to see past his own thoughts, which get darker with every step Roach takes.

Of course this is happening to him, to them. He had let himself believe they would get a happy ending. He should have known better.

He should have known his body, which has been working against him his whole life, would ruin the one thing it could be useful for. He should have known that mutations wouldn’t let him have a healthy child.

His body, his fault.

He doesn’t really think through the fact that he still has to give birth until the morning of the second day, when he begins to feel contractions. It brings a fresh wave of grief crashing over him.

He doesn’t tell Jaskier. Something about it feels too final, too overwhelming. He knows that’s not dealing with it well, but dealing with it badly is the only way he feels like he can survive.

Not that he particularly wants to survive right now.

When they finally ride into town, the few people they pass side eye them and move away. Geralt doesn’t blame them, although Jaskier glares. Their grief and exhaustion must be visible, and it’s the kind of thing that no one wants to come closer to.

The innkeeper, a small woman with reddish brown hair, seems taken aback when they come in, but she gives them rooms at a decent price. She also gives Geralt several sympathetic glances, which he hates. She must be assuming he’s about to have the baby, and that it will be healthy and whole and alive.

Jaskier places a hand on the small of Geralt’s back as they walk up the stairs. It’s a familiar routine, even though he doesn’t really need the support this time, but it’s worse, because it’s not the aftermath of a battle, he’s in labor with their dead baby.

The room is small but tidy, and Geralt lets himself sink onto the bed, unconsciously curling around his stomach, even though there’s nothing left to protect. Jaskier moves to the other side of the room to try to contact Yennefer again.

Time and reality begin to slide away from Geralt. This is happening, this is really happening. His baby is dead. He doesn’t realize he’s begun to breath faster until Jaskier is crouched in front of him, talking gently. It takes him a moment to grasp the words.

“- through to Yen, she’ll be here soon. Breathe, Geralt. I’m right here, okay? I know, love, but you have to breathe.”

He nods, and slowly he regains control. As soon as he’s somewhat calm, Jaskier’s up again, rummaging through their bags and unpacking things, something they never do. Geralt can sense Jaskier’s need to do something, to find the thing that will fix this somehow, but the motion is making him slightly nauseous.

Actually, that might be the contractions.

When Yennefer arrives, her eyes are dark with pity, and she puts a gentle hand on Geralt’s shoulder, murmuring, “I’m so sorry.” The tenderness, unusual from her, hurts so much that he can hardly bear it.

When she looks him over and fixes him with a disapproving gaze, everything feels slightly more normal. “Did you know you were in labor?”

Geralt looks away, which is answer enough. Jaskier makes a half strangled sound behind him. “Geralt, why didn’t you tell me, you idiot?”

And he’s made everything worse, like he always does. He makes himself breathe. He has to get through this, at least. It’s the last thing he can do for his child.

“You’re still in the early stages,” Yennefer says. “Although your water’s already broken.”

Jaskier raises an eyebrow at Geralt, who looks away. “I didn’t notice.”

Yen mostly looks at Jaskier as she says, “Sometimes it’s not particularly dramatic. This could take a while, especially since it’s your first.” She pauses, as if debating whether to say what she’s thinking. “I’ll tell you right now that there isn’t much chance, but once they’re out I’ll do what I can.”

“Thank you,” Jaskier says, his voice much too quiet. When Geralt looks up, he’s crying, hanging his head and wiping hurriedly at his eyes as if to hide it. Geralt reaches a hand out to him, and he takes it.

Geralt realizes suddenly that he should be crying. That’s what a normal person would do in this situation, he thinks. But when he tries to summon tears, he only finds a deep well of sorrow and guilt and pain.

Jaskier squeezes his hand, and Geralt squeezes back, then pulls him closer to the bed and then next to him. They lay there, side by side, and Yennefer busies herself with the bag she’d brought, and Geralt can’t help but wonder if she’s trying to give them a moment alone. Jaskier’s crying gets harder. Geralt presses his face into his hair and hums gently without a tune.

In the end, Geralt’s labor lasts through the day and into the next morning. It passes in awful fragments of time. The pain starts out as something he can control, using the pain management techniques he’d been taught at Kaer Morhen decades ago, but it keeps getting worse. He won’t let Jaskier hold his hands, afraid that he’ll hurt him, so instead Jaskier holds his shoulders, talking gently to him the whole time.

Later, Geralt will be hard pressed to find a truly coherent memory from that time. He remembers the feel of Jaskier’s hands, and the sound of him singing, but has no idea if they were happening at the same time. He remembers, at one point, letting out a high keening noise, pressing his face into Jaskier’s side. He remembers them talking, always talking: “Come on, you’re doing so well.” “Just a little more now, love. “Breathe through it, Geralt, just breathe.” But for most of those he’d be hard pressed to tell who said them. He remembers feeling freezing, and someone wrapping a blanket tightly around him. Hands stroking his hair, a damp cloth on his forehead.

Towards the end, all he can remember of his thoughts is the battle between the need to have this be over and the desire for it to never end, to be able to keep his child close to him.

There’s dead silence when the baby’s born. Geralt would swear nothing in the world is making a sound just then. He closes his eyes, letting himself exist in this terrible moment, soaking up how truly awful it is.

“A boy,” Yennefer says, and her voice rings through the morning air. Jaskier lets out a small sob.

She works over the baby for several long moments, and even though Geralt is certain it won’t work, some part of him is desperate for it to succeed. His logic doesn’t trump his longing. Finally, she sits back. “I’m sorry. There’s nothing I can do.”

“Thank you,” Jaskier says tearfully. “For trying.” Geralt doesn’t say anything. He can feel the contractions starting up again, and remembering that he still needs to deliver the afterbirth makes him completely overwhelmed.

Yen picks the baby up and looks at him for a long moment, before handing him to Jaskier. While she helps Geralt with the afterbirth, Jaskier doesn’t speak, just looks down at the tiny body in his arms, tears running down his face. Geralt can see the love there along with the grief, both emotions deep and unshakeable, and he’s glad that at least one of them will be able to love their baby the way he deserves.

“Hey, baby,” Jaskier says finally. “Hello. I’m your dad. I’m so sorry we had to meet like this.” He moves closer to Geralt, and without asking settles the baby on the witcher’s chest.

He’s not that much smaller than most newborns, but he seems so, so tiny, an insignificant weight on top of Geralt. His face is perfectly formed, with little eyes that are still closed and a pursed mouth. His hair is dark, and though it’s still drying off it seems a little curly. Geralt has always been of the opinion that babies mostly just look like babies, but this one clearly has Jaskier’s nose.

He has ten toes and ten fingers, with tiny little fingernails. He has all his limbs and generally just looks like a baby. His skin is pale, but not the blue Geralt had feared it would be.

He reaches a hand out slowly, and as gently as if he was trying not to break a spiderweb, brushes a finger over the baby’s hair. It’s so soft. He’s half expecting to feel some sort of movement at his touch, but of course there’s nothing. He can smell the baby’s scent, new and familiar at the same time, soft and warm and comforting. Geralt feels so numb, as if he isn’t really there, and some part of him is crying out at that, because he needs to live this, needs to be present for this time with his son.

Carefully, scared of damaging him, he shifts the baby around so he’s cradled in Geralt’s arms. He can’t take his eyes off him. This is a tiny little person, a real miniature human, that he and Jaskier made together. And he failed him.

He begins moving back and forth, rocking. He’s not sure if it’s to soothe himself, or to comfort his baby. His baby, who is beyond comfort now.

“Here,” Jaskier says, handing him something. It’s a set of clothes, Geralt realizes, a simple one they’d picked out together. He shakes his head.

“You do it.”

Jaskier seems about to protest, but then he takes the baby from Geralt and lays him on the bed and ever so gently slips the clothes over the still little body.

“Oh,” Yen says, and when Geralt looks up, her eyes are bright with tears. “I have something for you.” Geralt knows what it is as soon as she pulls it from her bag, a folded square of dark blue cloth with silver embroidery thread.

“You finished it,” Jaskier breathes, taking it from her.

It’s the blanket. Jaskier had started it a few months after they’d found out about the pregnancy, determined to handmake a baby blanket despite his complete lack of experience. He’d spent night after night bent over it, cursing loudly as he pricked himself with the needle yet again. Once they’d run into Yen, she’d seen what he was doing and offered to finish the more advanced parts for them.

And she had, apparently. Jaskier unfolds it with shaking hands. It’s gorgeous. Almost reverently, he spreads it on the bed and places the baby on it. He wraps him slowly, clearly trying to get it exactly right.

“It’s perfect, Yen,” he says, picking the bundle up.

“It’s the least I could do,” she says.

“Do you want to hold him?”

She seems taken aback by the request, but nods. She doesn’t say anything as she cradles him, but Geralt can see the pain in her face. As she hands him back, she says, “He’s beautiful.” Then she slips out of the room without another word.

“He needs a name,” Jaskier says, bouncing the baby slightly.

Something hard is forming in Geralt’s gut. He feels a little bit like he just got punched.

“Why,” he asks, hearing how dead the words sound and hating it.

“What do you mean, why? He’s a person, he needs a name.”

Geralt rolls onto his side, away from Jaskier. “What’s the point? He’s not - he’s not alive, Jaskier.”

Jaskier makes a frustrated little sound. “He’s still here, he still exists. He deserves a name.” Geralt can hear that he’s crying again. He’s made Jaskier cry. But he can’t bring himself to turn back towards him.

He hears Jaskier walking away. He still doesn’t look.

He’s not sure how long he stays like that. He can’t pay attention to anything around him, because his baby is gone, his baby is dead. He wants him back, and the wanting is going to destroy him, and he has to push it away, but he can’t, he’s never going to be able to. He wants his baby, he just wants his baby.

He floats in his own thoughts for a while, just trying to remove himself from the pain. Yen comes back, heralded by the scrape of the poorly-hung door on the floorboards. He hears her coming closer. “Are you two alright?” she asks. Geralt presses his face into the pillow.

“As well as can be expected, I think,” Jaskier says. “Are you?”

“I’m fine.” Her voice is stiff. “Listen, I know this is the last thing you want to think about, but we need to decide what happens next.”

Geralt stiffens.

“You need to decide what to do with the body.”

Jaskier exhales. “Fuck.”

“I don’t want him here,” Geralt says, surprised at the vehemence in his words. “I don’t want him in some town I’ll never come back to.”

“Where do you want him, then?” Yen asks, not unkindly.

Geralt pauses to think for a moment, even though he knows the answer as soon as she says it. What right does he have to dictate where their son’s resting place is? And more than that, what right does he have to want his son to stay at the place that turned Geralt’s body into the thing that killed him?

“Could we - if it’s alright with Geralt, is there a way we could cremate him?” Jaskier asks. “I know that’s traditional for witchers, and it would - it would mean we don’t have to decide where to leave him right now. In theory, we wouldn’t have to leave him, ever.”

“I could do it for you, if you both agree to it,” Yennefer says, her voice carefully empty.

“Yes,” Geralt says quickly.

“If you’re willing to. . .” Jaskier says.

There’s silence for a moment, and then Geralt feels a hand on his back. He turns over, finally. It’s Jaskier. Of course it is.

“Do you want to hold him again?” he asks. Geralt nods. Jaskier hands him over, and turns to go back to the chair in the corner.

“Stay?” Geralt asks. Jaskier seems to melt a little.

The two of them curl up next to each other, and Geralt lays the baby between them. He tries to enjoy this, having both of them there, because this is the only time they’ll get together.

As they’re laying there, Geralt realizes what’s been missing. “Jask,” he says quietly. “You should sing to him.”

Jaskier looks away from him.

“I think you’ll regret it, if you don’t.”

They’ve had conversations over the past months - more accurately, Jaskier has talked while Geralt had listened - about the first song he’d sing to the baby. Jaskier had insisted on writing one specifically for the baby. Geralt remembers pointing out that Jaskier’d been singing to the kid since they’d found out, but the bard had insisted that this was “different, Geralt.”

Jaskier nods. “You’re right, I should.”

He picks the baby back up, and moves around so that Geralt can see him as well. He begins to sing softly.

“Take the stars from the sky, my love,”

His voice begins to waver.

“And hang them in the trees,”

Tears streak his face, and he stops for a moment to breathe.

“So when it’s dark outside, my love,”

He lets out a small sob, burying his head in the blanket for a moment before continuing.

“You can find your way home to me.”

Geralt knows there’s more to the song, but Jaskier stops there and begins to sob. His cries grow in intensity until he’s keening, a high thready noise that hurts Geralt’s ears. He pulls both of them close, one hand in Jaskier’s hair. There’s nothing he can do but hold them. Across the room, Yennefer is watching them, but she doesn’t intervene. Geralt’s glad she’s here. He’s glad they’re not doing this alone.

After Jaskier is done with this round of tears, they stay curled up like that. Yennefer takes the baby from them for a moment to cool the body and hold off decay a little longer. Geralt hates the reminder of their reality, but is grateful to her.

After that, they lay with the cold corpse between them. They talk to him quietly, taking turns, telling him about Ciri and Roach and the other witchers, and the handful of cousins Jaskier still keeps in contact with. They tell him stories, about themselves and about the rest of his family. Geralt tells him about Blaviken, which earns him a weird look from Jaskier, but it feels important for him to know. He’d always thought he’d tell his child about it when they were in their teens and old enough to understand, like he had with Ciri. Together, they tell him as much as they can about the world he’ll never get to see.

When night falls again, Jaskier carries him over to the room’s one small window, to show him the stars and tell him stories about them for the last time. It had been one of their routines, lying together under the night sky, Jaskier telling stories that Geralt half thought he was making up but that he insisted were true, and Geralt explaining how to navigate by them. Jaskier had laughed at him the first time he had done it, but Geralt had wanted to share this with them, and that was the only way he knew how.

He doesn’t join them by the window.

Yennefer holds the baby again, sitting on the bed next to them. The three of them watch the sunrise with tired eyes.

When morning has well and truly come, Jaskier looks over at Geralt and says, “I think it’s time.” Geralt nods. They’ve had him for a day now, and although neither of them want to, they have to let him go.

They each hold him one last time. Jaskier sings to him again, his voice steadier this time. They change his clothes, because Jaskier wants to keep the first set, and then Yennefer takes him, and they’re alone.

Jaskier doesn’t watch as she carries their son out of the room, but Geralt does, because he needs to bear witness to this.

The moment he’s gone, Geralt can feel his absence like it’s a physical thing. He begins rocking again, trying to quiet the desperation rising inside of him. Jaskier sits down beside him and pulls towards him almost violently. They stay like that until Yennefer returns.


	2. is it as lonely between the stars

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again!
> 
> A note on this chapter: this is about two people figuring out how to grieve a massive loss together, and they're in the rough part right now. Jaskier is very critical of Geralt's grieving process; please don't take that as me being critical of the same. Also, the boys are generally kind of mean to each other in this chapter. I am not trying to endorse this behavior, just trying to show a realistic portrayal of how a relationship adjusts to grief.
> 
> Huge thanks as always to geekyyoungblood for betaing! Chapter title from Between the Stars by Canyon City

When Yennefer leaves, Jaskier feels Jander’s absence like a physical thing, a part of himself ripped away. He doesn’t know how to explain the feeling, the loneliness that washes over him. The knowledge that his son is gone and he’s never going to see him again.

Geralt leans against him, not saying anything. He seems to be somewhere else entirely. Jaskier pulls him towards himself and holds him against his chest. It feels like he’s trying to replace the missing part of him, but it isn’t working. They stay like that until Yennefer returns.

When she does, she has more stuff with her than Jaskier had expected. “I brought some things for you,” she says, placing the things on the bed. “I’m sorry it took so long.”

Geralt still doesn’t seem aware of everything, but Jaskier reaches out and runs his hand over the lid of the small blue box. “Where did you get this?”

“I asked around and bought it from one of the villagers. I thought it would work well.”

“It’s perfect.” The box is simple, only slightly smaller than the width of Jaskier’s hand. It’s wooden, with metal hinges and a metal clasp. “This is - this is where the ashes are?”

Yennefer nods. “I have a few other things.” She hands Jaskier a small glass vial. It takes him a long moment to realize what’s inside of it - a small cutting of dark fluffy hair.

Impulsively, Jaskier reaches out and hugs her, suddenly overcome with love for her. He’s crying again, and she lets him sob into her shoulder for a little bit.

“What are you going to do now?” She asks after a long moment.

Jaskier swallows, not sure what the answer should be. The idea of staying in this room any longer seems suffocating, but the idea of leaving - of severing this tiny connection to Jander - seems even worse. Before he can answer, Geralt speaks for the first time in hours, his voice rough from disuse.

“I want to take him to Kaer Morhen. Take him home.”

Jaskier nods. It’s early fall, and their plan had been to have the baby in a small town they’d spent time in years ago and then return to the witchers’ keep before the paths got bad.

“That sounds like a good plan, but you -” and Yennefer gestures at Geralt - “aren’t in any shape to ride.”

Geralt stops for a second, then looks up at Jaskier. His eyes still seem distant. “I can ride.”

Jaskier reaches out and takes his hand. “No, she’s right. You can’t, not for a few days.”

“A week, at least,” Yennefer says. “And then you’ll need to go slow. Two weeks would probably be better.”

“Witchers heal faster,” Geralt says, squeezing Jaskier’s hand, as if he can tell that Jaskier’s not thrilled about the idea of staying here.

“I’m counting that. You need rest.”

Jaskier runs his other hand over his face. “I just. I can’t stand being in this room without him”

“We could ask the innkeeper if you switch rooms,” Yennefer offers. “She seemed welcoming enough.”

“Yeah,” Jaskier says, feeling himself latch onto the new task ahead. “Yeah, that would be good.”

“I can -”

“No, I can do it. I need to - I need to do something, if I sit around here any longer I’m going to go crazy.”

Yennefer seems to understand. “Alright. You go do that, I’ll be here when you come back.”

The innkeeper is named Ela. She gives Jaskier a small, questioning smile when he comes to talk to her and readily agrees to let them switch to another room.

“We don’t get many travelers this time of year,” she tells him. Then she pauses for a moment. “I just have to ask - your partner, was everything - alright?”

Jaskier has to stop himself from gasping. Someone outside of the three of them acknowledging it is harder to take than he thought. He has to pull himself together, he knows he must already look a mess. “It - no. No, we - we lost our baby.”

To his surprise, Ela seems to draw back for a moment, as if she’s been struck. “I’m so sorry,” she says. She takes a deep breath before continuing. “I lost a little girl a few years ago.”

“Oh,” Jaskier says, unsure what to do with this information but weirdly glad he knows it. “I’m sorry, that’s -”

There are tears in Ela’s eyes, and Jaskier realizes, in his as well. “It’s awful, isn’t it?” she murmurs. Jaskier nods, finding himself unable to speak. “Can I give you a hug?” He nods again, and she wraps an arm gently around him. “I’m so, so sorry,” she says again. “If there’s anything I can do for you, if you want to talk while you’re staying here, anything.”

“Thank you,” Jaskier says. “I mean that, thank you so much.”

As he turns to go back upstairs, she says, “What was your baby’s name?”

“Jander Vess,” Jaskier says, without hesitating. “What was your daughter named?”

“Lily.”

“That’s a beautiful name.”

She smiles. “Thank you.”

Going back upstairs means forcing himself to go back into the room. It takes effort to open the door, and even more to step through. Yennefer is tidying their room, getting their things together, and generally looking like she’s trying to seem busy. Geralt is sitting up in the bed, looking like he’s caught up in his own thoughts.

“We’ve got another room,” Jaskier tells them. “And I talked to the innkeeper a bit. She told me about the baby she lost, Lily. She said to ask her if we need anything”

He watches Geralt as he speaks, hoping the words will prompt some kind of a reaction. He’d take anything at this point. But all he can see is Geralt drawing back into himself more.

“That’s kind of her,” Yennefer says gently.

Geralt doesn’t say anything.

They stay at the inn for over a week. Yennefer leaves after four days, once they promise her that they’ll be fine on their own. Secretly, Jaskier’s not sure they will. For the first time in years, he has no idea how to handle Geralt.

Since Yennefer let him leave the room, the witcher has been spending most of his time with Roach, or sitting in their room cleaning his swords over and over again. Towards the end of their stay, he begins light training. Jaskier is worried about him pacing himself, but Geralt pushes his concerns away. He’s barely talking to Jaskier.

To be fair to him, Jaskier doesn’t try very hard after getting brushed off the first few times. The first few days he stays in bed with Geralt, not touching most of the time, just staying there together. After that, he spends most of his time in the main room of the inn with Ela.

Mostly, he lets her talk about her daughter. She has a lot to say about Lily, and Jaskier gets the impression there’s been no one to listen to it.

It hurts to hear her talk about it, but it’s a good hurt, like cleaning infection from a wound. And even if it wasn’t, Jaskier would put up with it, because it’s so nice to not feel alone.

He tries to get Geralt to talk to her, early on. “I think it would be good for you,” he tells him, because as much as he’s angry that Geralt is shutting him out, he’s worried as well. They’ve gotten to a point over the years where Geralt will tell Jaskier what’s going on in his head, and together they’ll untangle it and figure out what’s going on. It hurts to not know what he’s thinking about, but to know that it’s not good.

Geralt shakes his head. “I don’t - not now.”

Jaskier gets it, in a way. He’s not really able to talk about Jander with Ela, not ready to give those details to someone else. Instead, he’s been writing them down, because he can’t stop thinking about that night, replaying every little detail again and again. He wants to remember everything, wants to slam the memory into his brain until it leaves a permanent stain. Even the awful parts (what part of it wasn’t awful?): Yennefer’s face when Jander had first come out. The complete silence of that moment. How floppy Jander’s arms had gone, and then how stiff. The moment when his papery skin had torn a little bit under Jaskier’s fingers.

But he can’t wish those memories away, even if there was a way to make himself forget. They were time spent with his son, and he has so little of that that he can’t wish any of it away. He’s been much more quiet since Jander died. It only seems fair to him, in a way.

Geralt hasn’t mentioned Jander since he died. He still hasn’t asked for his name.

Jaskier keeps breaking down in weird places, over weird things. He cries in stables and stairwells and in the middle of the street, moments where he can’t hold it together any longer. He wants to yell, wants there to be something to punch, to fight, a way to get his baby back.

There isn’t, so he goes through each day like he’s only partially real and tries to remember to eat. He usually fails. It would make sense to be performing, so they’ll have some coin when they set out again, but he doesn’t touch his lute once. He can’t bring himself to.

On the eleventh day, Geralt asks about leaving. He’s been doing this for days, but this time Jaskier says yes. He doesn’t want to be on the road again, is anticipating a million reminders of the pregnancy, but it would be good to get to Kaer Morhen. It’d be good for Geralt as well.

Ela comes out to see them off, and to give Jaskier a vine from the morning glory that climbs the inn’s front wall, to remember her by. Jaskier hugs her and cries, while Geralt sits on Roach and looks the other way. Jaskier feels the uncomfortable anger he’s felt wisps of the past week start to form something more concrete.

As they exit the town, Jaskier stops to look back at it, feeling a sudden wave of fondness.

“What are you doing?” Geralt asks gruffly.

“I just wanted one last look,” Jaskier says, unable to keep the emotion from his voice. “At where our son was born.”

Geralt hmphs, and when Jaskier turns around he has his eyes firmly fixed on the horizon. “I never want to see it again.”

They set out as they normally do, following man made paths as far as they’re able, then starting down deer trails, heading north. The day is fine, the sky a deep clear blue. Normally a day like this would make Jaskier insufferably joyful, even to himself. Today, they walk in complete silence. There’s no lute playing or dramatic gesturing or poetic waxings about the changing of the seasons and nature’s beauty.

There’s an absence of sound that seems to be following Jaskier, has been since Jander was born without a cry. He’s terrified of trying to fill it, because he knows, deep in his bones, that nothing he does will even make a dent.

He pushes those thoughts away and walks faster, until he’s in front of Geralt and Roach. Gods, it’s not supposed to be like this. It’s not supposed to be this quiet.

There’s a mix of memories flying around him, some from the past months and some that never got the chance to happen. Geralt should be carrying their son right now, holding his little body close as Roach’s movement sends him to sleep. At the same time, there’s the memories of walking like this while Geralt was still pregnant, Jaskier holding one sided conversations with the baby that made the corner of Geralt’s lip turn up, no matter how much he pretended it didn’t.

They move forward in silence. Jaskier makes sure they stop earlier than usual - Geralt’s mutagens have surely taken care of the last of the physical impacts of birth, but he isn’t taking any chances. They find a small clearing near a pretty stream, and Jaskier fusses at Geralt when he insists he can set up the camp by himself.

He finds he’s nervous about the night, and he has no idea why.

When they’re both settled by the fire, Geralt looks at Jaskier like he’s searching for something. “You haven’t been singing.”

The statement takes Jaskier by surprise. He’s not sure why this is what Geralt has chosen to bring up, and the tendrils of anger rise again. He doesn’t look at his husband as he replies. “I haven’t felt like it.”

Geralt hms in acknowledgement, and prods at the fire with the stick he’s been stirring it with.

Tell me what it was like, Jaskier thinks, a little desperately. Tell me what it was like to hold our son in your arms, tell me what you thought of his hair color and his hands and his everything, tell me about him, tell me more, more, more.

Geralt doesn’t say anything else, and Jaskier can’t see a point in asking.

They curl up close that night, and Jaskier finds himself tracing the stars with his eyes, without meaning to. He begins to cry quietly, because how many nights had they laid like this with their baby, looking at the stars? It feels like too many to count.

Geralt still doesn’t speak, but he runs one hand through Jaskier’s hair. Jaskier just wants him to say something.

Nights begin to get colder as they move towards the mountains. It’s still mid autumn, but winter is already nipping at their heels. Something about the graying landscape seems right to Jaskier, as if the earth is grieving with them. He still can’t stop crying. Geralt is still Geralt.

That’s unfair. Jaskier can see immense sadness in everything his witcher does, and he can tell he hasn’t been sleeping. But he doesn’t talk to Jaskier about any of it, about Jander, and Jaskier sort of feels like he’s going crazy, like their son never existed outside of his own mind. He needs the reality of their loss echoed back to him.

Jaskier develops the habit of looking through Jander’s things every night. He lets Geralt go off by himself to hunt or gather firewood, and he takes them out one by one and puts them back neatly. He refolds the blanket and the tiny shirt with flowers embroidered on it, and places them at the bottom of the saddle bag. He puts the other clothes, ones Jander never wore, on top of them. He lines up the wooden horses Geralt had bought, remembering his refusal to admit he’d done so because one looked like Roach. He places the box with Jander’s ashes next to them. On top of all of it, he puts the yellow felt dragon.

He’s always crying by the end of it, but Geralt never asks what’s wrong when he returns. He just pulls Jaskier into his arms, lets him cry into his shoulder.

After three days of traveling, they stop and make their camp in a shallow cave. Geralt goes off to hunt, and Jaskier begins to go through the things as he always does. It only takes him a moment for him to realize what’s missing. The blue star blanket they’d wrapped Jander in is gone. Jaskier feels panic beginning to build in his throat as he continues to look and still doesn’t see it. He must have lost it, left it at their previous campsite. But he can’t have, he knows he put everything back. He always does it the same way.

Of all Jander’s things, losing that blanket hurts the worst. He had spent weeks making it, getting so frustrated he at one point threw it at the wall. Geralt had laughed at him for that, and shortly after, when they had seen Yennefer again, Jaskier asked her to finish the embroidery. But he had done most of it, and he had picked the theme, had begun to set out the constellations.

When Geralt comes back, he’s sitting on his bedroll with his head in his hands. He can’t find it and he doesn’t know how to handle that, and somewhere in his brain he realizes this is some kind of projection, an awful metaphor he would scoff at in a song. He can’t find the blanket and he can’t get his son back.

Geralt looks at him for a long moment before he comes over. “Are you alright?”

Jaskier has been waiting two weeks for this question, for Geralt to be soft like this, but hearing it makes him so sad. He’s wanted this comfort but now that he has it, he feels the need to pull away from it.

“I’m fine, it’s just - it’s stupid, it doesn’t matter.” It does matter, he thinks. It matters it matters it matters.

Geralt sits down beside him, looking at him almost shyly. “If - I’m - I’m here, Jask.”

Jaskier nods. Geralt’s being so sweet, he’s trying even though Jaskier knows he’s struggling. He still doesn’t tell him what’s wrong, because all at once he has no idea what’s wrong, and what’s wrong is the most obvious thing in the world. But he leans against him, taking comfort from the contact. He misses Geralt, even though he’s right here. Some part of him hopes Geralt misses him as well.

Jaskier doesn’t sleep well that night. When he does manage to drift off, he dreams he’s in a windowless room. The only thing he can hear is a baby crying, and he knows instinctively it’s his baby, but no matter how hard he pounds on the door, he can’t get to him. He wakes up with tears streaking his face.

It’s still dark out. Geralt is sitting by the fire, and looks up as Jaskier pushes himself up. He must be able to tell that something is wrong, can probably hear how heavily Jaskier’s breathing.

Jaskier does his best to calm himself. It was a dream, he’s okay. Well, he’s not really okay, but he’s here and he’s safe. He can breathe.

It doesn’t really work. Reality isn’t any better than the nightmare.

Geralt turns back to the fire, as if to give him space. Jaskier wishes he wouldn’t. He hates the distance between them, which has torn back open like a chasm, unsafe to cross. Before, he could have gone over to Geralt and demanded physical attention if he felt like he needed it.

“Geralt?” he says after a long moment.

“Yes?”

“You didn’t - I couldn’t find Jander’s blanket yesterday. Do you - do you know where it is?”

He watches Geralt closely in the cold morning light, hoping for some reaction. At this point he thinks he wants Geralt to have taken it - it’d mean it wasn’t lying somewhere in the woods, and it would be the clear sign of grief Jaskier now realizes he’s been looking for. He’s mad, but only because Geralt let him think it was lost.

“I don’t know where it is,” Geralt says. He’s lying, Jaskier can just tell. He’s normally able to tell when Geralt isn’t telling the truth about half the time, but this is painfully obvious. The anger roils inside Jaskier, pushing him onward.

“Are you sure? Because I know I put it back, and no one else could have taken it. Anyways, who steals a baby blanket?”

Jaskier’s digging at Geralt, he knows, but he can’t bring himself to care. He’s mad now, getting steadily angrier, and he realizes he wants Geralt to yell at him, because that would be a reaction, that would be something other than the nothingness. He just wants someone to fucking talk to, and instead he’s stuck in the woods with a witcher and a horse and neither of them are up to the task.

Geralt ducks his head, pointedly not looking at Jaskier. The words hang in the air for a long moment before standing up, walking to his bedroll and taking something from it. He brings it over and drops it beside Jaskier without looking at him. Then he walks to Roach, and stands next to her for a long moment, before sitting down.

It’s the blanket.

Jaskier can’t stop himself from scooping it up and burying his face in it. It smells like Jander, and all of a sudden he’s crying again. He’s not sure if he should let Geralt be or if he should go over to him, try to talk. The anger is still there, but now it’s masked by a layer of exhaustion, and he just wants to be held.

But he can’t make himself move.

He half falls asleep before Geralt comes and lays down next to him. He curls up with his back to Jaskier, and neither of them say a word. As soon as Geralt’s settled, Jaskier suddenly feels wide awake. Time seems to be passing so slowly he can hear it.

When morning finally comes, Jaskier’s stiff and exhausted, with a sick sort of headache behind his eyes. While Geralt is tending to Roach, he folds the blanket and slips it into Geralt’s saddlebag.

That night, Jaskier finds it in his things when they stop to make camp.

It turns into a strange routine, them passing the blanket back and forth over the course of the day. Jaskier tries to make sure Geralt has it at night, because he seems to sleep better when he has it. But Jaskier himself finds that it’s comforting to have it with him while they’re walking.

It keeps getting colder. At one town they pass through, Jaskier is able to find the last of the autumn mums. He snaps off a few blooms when no one’s looking, and slips them in the box with Jander’s ashes, along with the dried vine of morning glory.

He and Geralt barely talk, and for once Jaskier is as taciturn as the witcher. He takes care of the practical things - making sure they eat, making sure they sleep, because if one of them didn’t he’s pretty sure they’d forget entirely. Geralt mostly takes care of Roach. It seems to be calming to him, and Jaskier’s glad he’s found something to center him. He himself is still desperately searching for that thing, the activity that will keep his brain occupied enough that he doesn’t think about anything.

Neither of them are sleeping well. At night they keep lying awake, looking up at the stars the way they had so many times when Geralt was pregnant. Jaskier always thinks of Jander, and he always ends up crying. Geralt doesn’t bring it up, but he always moves closer and wraps an arm around him.

Slowly, they get closer to their destination. One night, they wake up to snow covering the camp, the sky a determined gray, refusing to let any light in. Geralt has started leading Roach, leaving her less encumbered for the rocky paths.

Jaskier has made this journey time and again, but something in his brain is processing every experience as new, the landscape made bleak by a filter of grief. Everything is through the lens of after Jander. The crossing is fairly easy, the snow not having had time to build up yet.

Finally, the imposing shape of Kaer Morhen comes into view. Jaskier’s been dreading their arrival. He doesn’t want to explain what happened, doesn’t want either of them to face judgement. But once he’s in sight of it, all he feels is a wave of relief. They’ve made it.

Geralt seems to tense up as they get closer. Jaskier almost asks what’s wrong, but decides it pointless. Geralt wouldn’t answer, and anyways, there’s only ever one thing wrong these days.

They arrive at the gates of the fortress in early afternoon, cold autumn light falling over them and dappling the shapes of dying leaves over the snow. Geralt’s hands are shaking as he goes to open the gates. Jaskier wants so badly to reach out and take them in his own, but the distance between the two of them seems suddenly insurmountable.

Before they can enter the actual building, the door flies open and Ciri comes running out, hair half out of it’s braids. She skids to a stop before she can slam into them, looking them up and down. It only takes a moment for her to realize something’s wrong.

“Where’s the baby?” Her voice is small in a way Jaskier hasn’t heard in years.

Jaskier glances at Geralt. Geralt is looking at the ground, face blank and pale. There’s no way he’ll speak first.

“We lost him,” Jaskier says gently, and then, worried that had been too ambiguous, “he didn’t make it. He died.”

Ciri looks at him for a long moment, clearly horrified, before launching herself at both of them. "I'm so sorry," she says into Jaskier's shoulder, already tearing up.

Geralt wraps a tight arm around her. Jaskier does as well and for a long moment they stay like that, until they hear footsteps behind them. Jaskier looks up and sees Vesemir.

He stands there looking at him, and Jaskier can see that he already has guessed what's wrong. Geralt has his eyes on the ground again. Jaskier just looks at Vesemir and shakes his head. He can see the moment it really hits Vesemir. The old witcher seems to deflate a bit. He walks the rest of the way over and puts a hand on the back of Geralt's neck. Geralt stiffens at the touch.

"What happened?" Vesemir asks, running his eyes over the two of them. Jaskier is ready to answer, but he's surprised when Geralt gets there before him.

"He died." His voice is quiet and emotionless. "He died inside of me."

It's the first time Jaskier has heard it said out loud, and it brings tears to his eyes. When he glances at Vesemir, the old witcher’s eyes are bright with them as well. "When?" he asks.

Jaskier waits for Geralt, but he seems to have gone as far as he wants to. "About a month ago," he supplies.

The noise Vesemir makes is half a sigh. "I'm sorry, both of you. I'm so sorry." There's sadness in the corners of his eyes,

Geralt nods sharply. Jaskier gives him a sad smile.

The four of them go inside. Vesemir leads them into the main room. Geralt and Jaskier sit next to each other, mostly out of habit. Jaskier is exhausted, both physically and at the thought of having to explain what's happened.

Vesemir doesn't say anything, just looks at them like he's not sure if he should ask. Jaskier glances at Geralt. He looks away. Jaskier feels resentment rising in his throat as he begins to speak. "We - everything was fine, we were almost through, but then one morning Geralt realized - he realized he couldn't hear the heartbeat. We couldn't contact anyone for a few days, and by the time we got through to Yennefer, he was already coming and then - and then he was there. And he was gorgeous."

By the end of the story, Jaskier is tearing up a little, but he's proud of how well he's kept it together. He had half expected to not be able to get through it.

Ciri, sitting next to Geralt, leans into him reassuringly. "I'm sorry," Vesemir says again, looking as if he doesn't know what else to say. "What was his name?"

Before Jaskier can tell him, Geralt says in that same quiet, dead voice. "We didn't name him."

We? Jaskier thinks as he turns to him, mouth open. He, Jaskier, had named their baby, and Geralt knows that, even if he doesn't know the name.

Vesemir and Ciri are staring uncomfortably at them, clearly aware of the tension. Jaskier gathers himself and turns to Geralt. "Can we go to our room, I'm tired all of a sudden." His words are icy, but he doesn't care, just like he doesn't care that the implication of his words is clear. Geralt nods, his eyes careful.

When they get to the room, Jaskier slams the sturdy wooden door and turns to Geralt. "What the fuck was that?"

Geralt looks away, picking at the edge of his shirt. "Hmm."

Jaskier is furious, madder than he can remember being in a long time. "No. No, you don't pull that shit with me right now. What the fuck, Geralt? What is wrong with you? Our baby has a name, I named him. Maybe you don't give a shit our baby, but I do, and I'd like it if you took that into account!"

He knows as soon as it's out that it's too much, too far. He knows Geralt cares, he does, he just -

Geralt's face has gone blank and pale. As Jaskier watches, he slowly lowers himself onto the bed and buries his face in his hands, his shoulders shaking with sobs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! You can find me on tumblr at leavemecryingdandelion.


	3. i can't look at the stars

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all! I was hoping to get this out in October for stillbirth, infant loss, and pregnancy loss awareness month and give you all some resources if you should happen to need them, but real life got in the way, so I'll be linking stuff next chapter. Which is - the end! Wow! In fact, it is technically an epilogue.
> 
> I hope you enjoy this!

Geralt cries like he has never cried before. He’s sobbing, he’s keening, he’s half shouting. The noises don’t sound human, and he can’t stop them, can’t do anything but let it all out. It’s so _much_ , and it’s going to drown him, it’s going to suffocate him, and all he can do is scream.

Distantly, he feels Jaskier’s hands on his shoulders, trying to anchor him, but it doesn’t seem real. Nothing is real except the wanting, and he thinks this, this is why he held back the tide for so long, because he knew how he would shatter.

Jaskier is asking him something. He shakes his head, says, “I just want my baby.” And then he can’t stop saying it, “I want my baby, I just want him _back_.”

He’s pulled in close against Jaskier, so he can hear his heartbeat, and he grips back like he’s trying to stay afloat. He buries his head in the soft fabric of his husband’s doublet and keeps wailing, because it’s all he knows how to do right now. He’s still saying it: “I just want him, I just want my baby.”

There are soft noises coming from somewhere - he thinks from Jaskier. And usually they would calm him but right now there’s too much and he doesn’t know what to do with it all.

He’s not sure how long they stay like that. All he knows is that eventually he can breathe again, but being able to breathe, not having to scream, isn’t any better. His baby died, he failed his baby. Their baby died, and all he did after was hurt Jaskier more.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m so sorry, Jaskier. I should have - I failed him. I let him die.” The last words break down into quiet sobs.

“It’s not your fault,” Jaskier says, pressing his face against the top of Geralt’s head. “It’s not your fault, please tell me you know that.”

“It is, it is, I missed it. I missed his heartbeat stopping. How the fuck did I miss that?”

“There was nothing we could have done, love, nothing. It’s not your fault, please, it’s not your fault.”

Jaskier’s voice is desperate, but all Geralt can do is hold onto him, and try to calm the hurricane he’s uncovered within himself.

“I’m sorry,” Jaskier says, sounding small. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it. I know you care, I do.”

Geralt shakes his head a little. “No, you were right. I’ve been - I’ve been awful to you, and to him, and I’m so sorry.”

Jaskier squeezes him tight. “No, you haven’t. We’ve both been idiots, that’s all. But I think we’re allowed to be right now. We’re going to talk about this, though. Not tonight, but going forward we’ll talk to each other. Alright?”

“Yeah.”

“Alright. We’re okay.”

Nothing is okay, but it’s still good to hear Jaskier say it.

For the rest of the night, they lay curled together. At some point, Jaskier drifts off, but Geralt stays awake, listening to his husband breathe, and thinking about the baby. Thinking about the way his dark hair had curled as it dried. Thinking about how perfect his hands had been, and the way his fingers had stuck out a little. Thinking about the softness of his skin and the way it had cooled under Geralt’s touch, and the way it had started to tear during the end.

The next morning, he doesn’t get up. There’s no reason for it, he just can’t do it. Jaskier goes about his morning routine, giving Geralt increasingly obvious worried looks. Finally, he stops as he’s going out the door.

“Are you going to come eat?”

Geralt shakes his head. Jaskier seems to deflate a little bit, and that hurts so much that Geralt has to bury his face in the pillow again. After a moment, he feels the bed dip and a hand stroke his hair.

“If you need a day, that’s alright,” Jaskier tells him, and he sounds so tired, and Geralt hates hearing him like this. “All I ask is that you try to get up tomorrow, okay?”

Geralt nods.

Jaskier stands up, then kneels beside the bed, rummaging around their bags. He pulls something out, and drops it next to Geralt. Then he leaves, and Geralt is alone in the dark.

He reaches over for what Jaskier has left, and his fingers touch familiar soft fabric. The star blanket. He pulls it to him, pressing his face into it and breathing in his baby’s scent.

The day passes in strange fragments. He loses track of time, and in some moments it’s as if he isn’t there, like nothing’s happening at all. But other times, his head is so full of thoughts he’s surprised it doesn’t explode.

He had been so excited. It had been a quiet sort of excited compared to Jaskier’s, to the rest of his family’s, but that hadn’t made it lesser. He had always known, of course, that he had the capacity to bear children. He’s lived with this body his whole life, and he’s hated parts of it, but he’s never been able to hate that part. He had given up a long time ago on the dream of having children, and Ciri had seemed to be the answer to all the wishes he hadn’t let himself make. He had never thought he would have more than her, and he hadn’t realized how much he had longed for it.

When he’d heard the heartbeat begin, almost nine months ago, his first reaction had been wonder. It had been followed by panic, and joy, and anticipation, but the first one had been wonder.

Through some small miracle, he had managed to tell Jaskier before any of the other witchers noticed. It had been the middle of winter, the snow outside Kaer Morhen piled high, and Geralt had made up some excuse for the two of them to go fetch something from the stables. Geralt had grown accustomed, over the years, to the idea that he could make Jaskier happy. But nothing compared to the joy of sharing this news.

It had made him feel a little guilty, though, because he hadn’t realized how much Jaskier had wanted this, how much he must have held it back for Geralt’s sake.

But mostly, it had made him - had made both of them - happy. It had made everyone happy. Eskel’s jaw had practically hit the floor when he realized what he was hearing. “Are you serious?” he’d asked, and although Geralt hadn’t actually said anything yet, he nodded in response to his brother. Eskel had whooped and wrapped him in a tight hug. “I know you’ve wanted this since we were kids.”

Lambert had stopped dead in his tracks, stared at Geralt for a full minute, and burst out laughing. “No way,” he said. “No way you actually managed that.” Geralt had put him in a headlock for it.

Vesemir’s eyes had widened in surprise, and then he had just smiled and squeezed Geralt’s shoulder.

Which had left only Ciri to tell. Geralt had asked Jaskier if he wanted to be there, but he insisted that as her father surprise, Geralt should do it. He had suggested the two of them go out hunting together, do some bonding while they were at it.

Ciri had yelled in excitement, scaring off any prey in the area and sounding remarkably like Eskel.

The memory of his family’s joy makes Geralt sob again, burying his face into his pillow until he can barely breathe. Then things go fuzzy again for a while, until Jaskier comes in with food. His husband crawls into bed next to him, holding him close and stroking his hair. He smells like sweat and sawdust, and Geralt wants to bury into him and never let go. After some coaxing, he manages to eat, but afterward he has no idea what the food was. Then the two of them lie there holding each other, as if by pressing close they can ignore the gaping hole where their baby should be.

“We’re okay,” Jaskier whispers again. “We’re alright.”

The next day, Geralt gets out of bed after an hour of lying there. He feels odd, light and heavy at the same time, as if his soul is trying to fly away but is being held down by an extreme weight. Jaskier stands up when he walks into the main room, where he, Ciri, and Vesemir are sitting together.

“You’re up!”

“I told you I’d try.”

Jaskier hugs him quickly, murmurs “I’m proud of you.” Ciri has also stood up, and Jaskier takes his hand and walks him over to her. They sit down together, and she leans against his side.

“I missed you,” she tells him, her voice gentle. He hates that she’s having to take care of him. Vesemir sits silent, watching the two of them.

“I missed you too,” Geralt says, ruffling her hair, which he realizes for the first time since arriving has been cut short. “I like the haircut.”

She grins, and returns to the work in front of her - she’s mending her cloak. Now that Geralt looks around, everyone has something to work on. Vesemir is carefully polishing a very old sword, and Jaskier is carefully and uncertainly repairing a leather chest piece.

“Is there something I can do?” he asks, realizing suddenly how much better he’d feel with his hands full.

Vesemir picks up a sword from the pile beside him, and Geralt sets to work.

The next few days fall into a pattern. In the morning, they work in the main room, and in the afternoons Vesemir guides them in the yearly repairs of the keep. In the evenings, they gather again in the main room, but it’s oddly silent, no matter how much half-forced chatter Ciri and Jaskier come up with. For Geralt, it all becomes a blur. He barely speaks, except in the mornings with Ciri. He tries his best not to worry her.

He cries easily these days, as does Jaskier. Sometimes their tears set each other off, but no matter what, they hold each other until they can move again.

On the third day, Geralt goes through the baby’s things for the first time. It aches, burns, rips open something he hadn’t realized had begun to close over, but holding them makes him feel close to his son, and in this moment he’ll take the pain.

It’s a small amount. They had planned to buy more things on their way to Kaer Morhen, to try to keep down the volume of their packs, so there are only a few sets of clothes besides the ones the baby wore. There are stacking blocks, and a set of wooden horses, one of which bears a striking resemblance to Roach. And there’s a stuffed dragon Jaskier had bought, which Geralt had told him was anatomically inaccurate.

He runs his hands over all of them, then carefully puts them back where they were. He knows he won’t do this again for a while, won’t be able to bear it, but eventually he’ll come back to them.

In a strange way, his days are peaceful. He and Jaskier don’t spend a lot of time together, but when they do they can’t seem to stop holding each other. They haven’t talked yet, but Geralt tries to ask Jaskier how he’s doing, every morning, and Jaskier does the same.

On the sixth day (the thirty fifth day _since_ ), he and Vesemir repair a wall in the courtyard, which isn’t falling down but seems to want to. As they work in silence, Geralt thinks about his baby. He had never seen his eyes, hadn’t thought to check what color they were. He likes to think they were blue, like Jaskier’s, but it bothers him that he’ll never know.

“We held him,” Geralt says, without having realized he was going to say it. The words seem to echo against the stone. “We held him until the next day, and I told him - I told him about this place, about his home.”

“I’m glad,” Vesemir says gently, “that you got to do that.”

Geralt nods, and now that he’s started the words keep coming, pressure building in his throat and releasing like steam from a geyser. “He was - he was beautiful. He had this dark brown hair, and when it dried it curled a little, just at the ends. And his hands - his pinkies stuck out, Jaskier said he had organ player hands.”

Vesemir stays quiet.

“I was so scared I would see him and feel nothing,” Geralt continues. “But it wasn’t like that, for me. I saw him and I knew, like I knew with Ciri. That he was mine.”

Vesemir nods. “I know what you mean. And I’m so sorry you couldn’t see that feeling grow.”

“We were thinking of naming him for you,” Geralt says, his voice shaking for the first time. “Vess. Maybe as a middle name - Jaskier had more ideas about his first name than I did.”

When Geralt looks up at his father, there are tears in the old man’s eyes.

Eskel arrives that night. For the first time he can remember, Geralt has been dreading his brothers’ return. He hates the thought of having to say the words out loud, but he also hates the thought of making Jaskier do it alone. He doesn’t want them to know, somehow - not about the baby, but about Geralt not being able to keep him safe.

It’s good to see Eskel. It’s always good to see him. Some part of Geralt relaxes as soon as his brother is in his sightline, even as the rest of him tenses. The other witcher makes a beeline for Geralt, grinning, and places his hands on his shoulders, looking him up and down.

“You’re in good shape for someone who just had a baby! Where are they?”

“He’s not -” Geralt’s voice breaks, and he can see the exact moment Eskel realizes something is wrong. “I had him, but he wasn’t - alive.”

And then he’s being pulled into a bear hug, his face falling naturally into the curve of Eskel’s neck. “I’m so, so sorry,” Eskel says.

“We are too,” Geralt says, because no words will make this any less awful. Nothing will make this okay.

Eskel somehow manages to give Geralt an even tighter squeeze, then lets him go and turns to Jaskier. “I’m so sorry, Jaskier,” he says, and wraps the bard in his arms as well. Geralt catches Jaskier’s eye, and sees his own tears reflected.

The five of them arrange themselves by the fire, Ciri sitting with her head in Eskel’s lap. Geralt can see the hesitation in Eskel’s eyes as he speaks again. “Did you - where’s he buried?”

“We had him cremated,” Jaskier says. “We brought him here. It didn’t feel right to leave him alone.”

Eskel nods. “I’m glad.” His eyes are bright with tears as well. “Vesemir,” he asks, turning to their old master. “Have you shown them the -”

“Not yet. I wanted to wait for you and Lambert.”

Jaskier and Geralt glance at each other again. Geralt has no idea what’s going on, but there’s a worried comprehension in Jaskier’s eyes.

Eskel, who’s next to Geralt, leans his head against him, and Geralt runs a hand through his hair. “Do you know what happened?”

Geralt begins to speak as Jaskier shakes his head. “I have an idea.” Jaskier’s mouth drops open slightly.

“You do?”

Geralt nods. “I think - I think it was my mutations. There’s never been a born witcher before, and maybe there’s a reason for that. I think they made him - incompatible with life.” He keeps his tone as dull and matter-of-fact as he can, despite the tears running down his face.

“You didn’t say,” Jaskier murmurs, but he doesn’t sound angry, just upset. Geralt bows his head in response.

“That’s certainly possible,” Vesemir says gently.

Eskel nods, his face somehow even sadder.

Not long after, Vesemir goes to bed. Ciri is half asleep, but she insists on staying up with them, blinking blearily in the firelight. The silence is sad, but somehow comfortable. Finally Jaskier stands up. “Come on, little wolf, let’s get you to bed.” Ciri follows him sleepily out of the room.

Eskel turns to Geralt. “Tell me the truth - how are you doing?”

Geralt thinks over the responses he could give. I’ve cried every day the past week. My body failed him, and I’ve never hated it more. I can’t sleep if I’m not holding my dead son’s baby blanket.  
“Better than I was,” he says, and he’s telling the truth.

Eskel nods. “What was his name?”

Geralt freezes a little bit. “You’ll have to ask Jaskier for that. I didn’t - I asked him not to tell me.

Eskel nods again, wrapping an arm around Geralt’s shoulders.

Geralt wakes up in the middle of the night, the baby’s face stamped into his brain. He sits up suddenly as he does, making Jaskier groan and roll over. “‘S wrong?”

“Can I use one of your notebooks?”

Jaskier nods, turns on his side, and seems to go back to sleep.

Geralt doesn’t want to stay in this room, so he goes to the main room and lights a lamp. With one of Jaskier’s graphite pencils, he begins to sketch, going as slowly and carefully as he can. Even so, he has to go through several pages before he’s pleased. When Vesemir comes in early in the morning, he’s still sketching, committing his son’s face to paper before he can forget him.

Lambert arrives later that morning, covered in that night’s early snow and grumpy for it. Eskel shoots Geralt a glance that says, you want me to tell him? Geralt shakes his head.

The youngest witcher seems to pick up immediately that something’s off, and he approaches Geralt slowly, glancing anxiously at Jaskier out of the corner of his eye.

“What happened?” he asks, almost hesitantly.

“We lost him,” Geralt says simply, and of the (admittedly few) things he’s said about it, this feels like the truest.

“I’m sorry,” Lambert says, his face creased, almost as if he’s confused. “Fuck, I’m sorry.”

“Thank you,” Jaskier says, apparently seeing that Geralt is at a loss for words.

They go through the whole thing again, the _what happened_ and the rest of it. Geralt stays fairly quiet. Lambert is clearly trying his best to be gentle with them, which is sweet of him.

The next morning, Geralt and Jaskier sleep in. Or, more accurately, they stay in bed cuddling into the morning. When they finally make their way down into the eating area, the other witchers are waiting for them.

“We’ve got something to show you,” Eskel says, excitement clear on his face.

The three of them lead them to a room not far away from Geralt’s. It’s one of the old residential rooms that’s lain empty since the siege. The remaining witchers have barely touched them since. Suddenly, he puts the pieces together - Eskel’s excitement, Jaskier’s apprehension, his family having done something for them together.

They made them a nursery.

“Go ahead, open the door,” Lambert says, looking slightly impatient. Geralt does.

It’s lovely. They’ve obviously cleaned the room within an inch of its life, and Vesemir must have been coming in here to dust or something because it’s perfect. There’s a wooden crib in the corner, and a set of drawers that seems to have been made from the same type of tree. The rocking chair is made of something lighter, and it has a seat made of strips of cloth woven together. There are shelves hung on one of the walls. This room is one of only a few of it’s kind with a window, through which Geralt can see the last of the sunrise. Geralt stands at the door, unable to make himself walk in.

“Are you coming?” Jaskier says from inside, and Geralt can hear frustration in his voice.

He shakes his head. “I can’t, not yet.”

After a moment, Jaskier nods and turns away. Something in Geralt’s stomach finally settles.

That night, Geralt grabs Jaskier’s hand and drags him to bed as soon as they’ve finished eating. Normally, such behavior would result in catcalls from his brothers, but now they’re both quiet.

“We should talk,” Geralt says when they get back to their room.

“We should,” Jaskier agrees.

“I’m sorry about the name thing,” Geralt says. This feels too overwhelming to make eye contact. “I just - It felt like too much.”

“I’ll be honest,” Jaskier says. “I don’t entirely understand. But I believe you that it’s what you need.” He takes a deep breath. “And again, I’m sorry about the night we got here. I didn’t - I was expecting you to be grieving the same way I was. And that was unfair of me.”

Geralt nods. “I’m sorry about the blanket, as well. I should have asked before I took it.”

“You should have. But I understand. I get - I get wanting to have a piece of him.”

They’re quiet for a long time, which they spend slowly leaning towards each other until they’re holding each other up. 

“I miss him,” Jaskier says at last. “Is that stupid, when we never got to meet him?”

Geralt shakes his head. “We had eight months with him. And even if we’d only had a day, I think we would still miss him.”

Jaskier nods. “I’m going to miss him for the rest of my life. And - Geralt, I’m so angry. Not at you, or Yen, or anyone. I’m angry at the gods. I’m angry at the universe. It’s not _fair_.”

“It isn’t,” Geralt says. “But I’m. . . I’m glad I have you, for this.”

“And I’m glad I have you,” Jaskier says. 

They lapse into silence, and Geralt could let it end there. There’s still so much more they both need to say, but they’ve lanced the wound now, and he’s content to let the rest come out as it may. But there’s one more thing he wants to know.

“What did you name him?” he asks quietly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! If you enjoyed this, my hand slipped and I made a discord for my writing and knitting, if you're interested message me on tumblr at leavemecryingdandelion.


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